Tonks' Bad Day
by phoenixfyre13
Summary: Tonks is having one of those days...post HBP, RLNT. Reviews and concrit welcome and appreciated!


**Disclaimer: ** I don't own Harry Potter; JK Rowling does. She is so much better at this than I am, anyway. Gallimus Portney, however, is the creation of my own active imagination.

Not really big on summaries, but the story is set sometime after HBP. The title may give a clue as to the subject of my latest rambling. Enjoy!

**Tonks' Bad Day**

Nymphadora Tonks was having a very bad day.

She should've known that it would be a total loss of 24 hours when she tumbled out of bed and realized she was out of toothpaste. "Damn," she muttered, peering at herself in the mirror and inspecting her teeth. "S'pose they're not too fuzzy, right?" Her reflection was extraordinarily unhelpful, blinking blearily back at her with puffy eyes and brown hair sticking in multiple unflattering directions.

As she shuffled back to her bed, she glanced at her alarm clock. "Shit!" she exclaimed, nearly tripping over herself to strip her pajamas and throw on a set of robes. Damn that alarm clock! She could never quite set it right. Now, she was going to be late for work. _Great, _she thought as she nearly fell over her laundry in her hurry to get downstairs. _Fuzzy-teethed _and _late._

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Tonks sighed with relief as she apparated to the Ministry. "At least I didn't mess _that – _oof!" She felt the wind leave her lungs as she was gut punched and hit the floor with a _thump._

"What the bloody hell _was _that?" she gasped, as Arthur Weasley came rushing up to her.

"Tonks! Have you seen a flying dugby ball – oh, probably so, I see." He helped her up, looking apologetic. "So sorry dear."

"Arthur, what is a dugby ball?"

"Oh!" Arthur brightened. "It's used in this brilliant Muggle game where the players tackled one another and – "

"It's a rugby ball, Arthur," interrupted Tonks. "And dare I ask why it is flying?"

"Some wizard blokes down in Whinging thought it would be funny to enchant a – what did you call it? Rudly? – rudly ball. Some sort of prank for April Fool's Day. Pratchett lost it on the way in this morning."

"Lovely," she muttered, not bothering to correct his misuse of Muggle terminology. She pointed behind her. "I think it was headed for the lift."

Arthur rushed past her, and Tonks decided that a day like today wasn't going to improve without at least one cup of coffee.

"Yeouch!" she shrieked as scalding coffee hit her hand, causing her to drop her mug on her foot. She watched as the coffee spilled all over the floor in the breakroom, muttering to herself as she cleaned up the puddle.

"I see you are your usual graceful self this morning, Nymphadora."

Tonks groaned inwardly at the familiar voice above her. She held herself back from a snide comment about her name, and without looking up acknowledged the witness to her latest bit of clumsiness.

"Can I help you, Williamson?" she asked, looking back down at her puddle and scrubbing the floor twice as hard. "I'm a little busy here."

"I can see that," Williamson said, smirking. "However, when you are finished with your extremely important and mentally demanding task, come to my office. We've just received a new assignment."

"Got it." Goody. A day with that arse Williamson ranked somewhere right below walking over hot coals and eating ground glass at the same time. She somehow knew all she'd hear about was how wonderful it was that Scrimgeour had risen in the ranks of the Ministry, and how Williamson was certain all his hard work – or brown-nosing, as Tonks would have considered it – would pay off, and how he _knew_ that the Head Auror position was soon to be his.

The afternoon was just as tedious as Tonks had imagined it to be. She and Williamson had been assigned to follow a seedy-looking man, Gallimus Portney, who was thought to be an informant working out of Diagon Alley for the Death Eaters. She and Williamson had sat on a bench outside Flourish and Blotts, pretending to be engrossed in the _Daily Prophet_ while surreptitiously watching for any movement from the alleged spy. After three hours of watching Portney haggle and drink his way all the way down the street, Tonks and Williamson stood to follow him out of the alleyway. Having already decided this assignment had been a waste of their time, Tonks was too busy wallowing in her annoyance to notice that Portney had turned sharply around and was staring them in the face.

"Look – " but Williamson hadn't finished the thought before a flash of light shot out of Portney's wand and Tonks was sent flying into a nearby dumpster, smacking against the alley wall before tumbling into the fly-infested mess. The last thought she had before everything went black was that she was going to be supremely pissed if she couldn't get the smell of garbage out of her robes when this is was all over.

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"Tonks?"

Tonks moaned softly as she came to, recognizing the all-too-familiar fluorescent lights and faint smell of St. Mungo's. She also recognized, without even looking, the familiar feeling of the hand holding her right one firmly in its grasp. She smiled as she opened her eyes and immediately saw the handsome, prematurely lined face – a little more lined at the moment due to the worry creasing his brow – of her lover.

"Wotcher, Remus."

Remus smiled down at her, squeezing her hand gently and pushing back her hair from her forehead. "Welcome back, love," he said, leaning down to kiss her softly on the lips. As he pulled back, Tonks saw an odd look flick across his face, but as quickly as it had appeared it was gone, replaced by a look of relief. "You were out for a bit there, but the healers assured me you were just sleeping it off." He looked intently at her, a ghost of a frown in his face. "How do you feel?"

"Alright," Tonks replied, shifting a bit in the bed. A dull ache was pulsing in the back of her skull, and she would give a year's supply of Fizzing Whizbees for someone to make it stop altogether. "It's been a crapper of a day." She was horrified to feel tears welling up in her eyes, and Remus looked startled as he immediately sat on the side of the bed and took her in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his torso and buried her face in his chest, glad for a moment to be in the warm embrace of the man she loved.

"What, Dora? Are you in pain? What happened today?"

Tonks croaked out a laugh. "No Remus, I am not in pain. Well, I am, but I have a feeling the healers have already potioned me up to make it _this_ bearable. What happened? Better to ask what didn't happen. I forgot to get toothpaste last night on my way home, my alarm clock does _not_ like me, I burned my bleedin' hand with the stupid coffee, and I had to spend the entire afternoon with a man who has his nose so far up Scrimgeour's arse that I can't believe he's not imbedded in his brain."

"They were wondering how you got the burn on your hand," Remus chuckled, tucking her head under his chin and stroking her hair lightly. "That clown Williamson should be hexed for saving his own hide and leaving you to take the brunt of the spell. Fortunately, Portney is not terribly good at his unspoken spells, particularly under the influence of firewhiskey, so the _sectumspectra_ was not very effective. A few cuts, but nothing more. More damage to that brick head of yours against the wall than anything else." Remus kissed the top of her head, which somehow made her headache lessen. "May I just say how grateful I am for that hard head right now."

Tonks sighed as she picked at the sheets under her hand. "I'm just glad this day is over. And that you're here."

She could feel a smile form on his face. "So am I."

The healer walked by and looked in the room, frowning slightly at Remus. "Visiting hours are almost up, sir. You'll need to be going soon."

"Oh, can't he please stay?" asked Tonks before the healer could walk away. "I'd really feel much better if he did. He can fetch me water, or books, or whatever. I've been out so long I don't think I'll be going back to sleep anytime soon."

The healer huffed, knowing _exactly_ who would be stuck waiting on this patient if she did, in fact, kick this guest out. "Fine. But don't think this is an open invitation for the next time you are here, Miss Tonks."

Tonks rolled her eyes and Remus snorted with laughter after the healer had disappeared down the hallway. "Darling, you really should stop getting into these situations. I'm afraid the staff has come to know you."

"My reputation does tend to precede me here," smiled Tonks. "You should hear the stories they could tell about me on the Charms floor."

Remus laughed and stretched out on the bed as Tonks scooted over to make room for his lanky frame. She still thought he was too thin from his time with the werewolves, but she was working on getting him whole again – both in body and spirit. They lay in companionable silence for a while, until Remus' voice pulled her from almost-sleep.

"Dora?"

"Yes, Remus?"

"May I just say, I cannot wait to get you home tomorrow?"

"Why is that?" she said impishly, a smile creeping towards a grin.

"Well, after your, uh…encounter with the dumpster this evening, you are in desperate need of a bath."

Tonks sat up straight in the bed, almost knocking Remus to the floor. "I – you – git!" she stuttered, swatting him playfully on the arm as she saw him struggling to contain his laughter. However, the humor of the situation, which could have turned out much worse, gave her leave to giggle along with him. He pulled her back down into his arms, wrapping one arm around the back of her neck and settling the other across her stomach. She leaned into him, and he kissed her tenderly on the forehead.

"Ah, much better," he smiled, taking a lock of her hair around his fingers. She was pleased to see that instead of the mousy brown it had been for most of the day, it had transformed into a lovely shade of shocking pink. Remus extinguished the lights with a wave of his wand, and the two settled back into the bed.

"Dora?"

Tonks sighed. "Remus, if this is about my personal hygiene, I – "

"I'm glad you're alright."

The quiet confession, accompanied by a gentle squeeze around her waist, gave evidence to just how worried he had been. This second war was taking a toll on the lot of them, and she knew just how frightened she would be if she were in his shoes. The loss of people was so imminent, so expected, that it was only natural that a summons to St. Mungo's could mean something much more devastating than a bump on the head and garbage-stained robes.

Tonks looked up into Remus' eyes, glowing in the dim light of the lamps outside the window, and smiled reassuringly at him. _I'm still here, still whole._ "I love you."

"I love you, too," Remus whispered, his feelings evident in his gaze. "Much too much for my own sanity, I fear."

And as they lay there in the dark, auror and werewolf whole and alive and together for at least that moment in time, Tonks allowed herself to fall into a dreamless sleep not filled with visions of what could be.

Perhaps it hadn't turned out to be such a bad day after all.

**Author's Note: **Reviews and concrit welcome! Thanks so much to all who reviewed my "coming out" fic! This one is much happier -- well, except for the whole bad day thing...


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